Motorcycle Gang

Sidewalk insults sparked a fight that led to the stabbing death of one man and the injury of at least three others in a Frankford melee that involved as many as 100 people, police said. Three members of the Pagan motorcycle gang were jailed in the killing, police said. The wild battle started about 2 a.m. yesterday, when the three Pagans drove past the Expectations after-hours club on Oxford Avenue near Frankford Avenue and a group of men standing outside yelled insults at the bikers, police said.

The reputed leader of the violent Breed motorcycle gang was sentenced yesterday in Philadelphia federal court to 36 years in prison for drug, conspiracy and gun offenses. John "Junior" Napoli, 35, of Levittown, was convicted in October of conspiracy to distribute crystal methamphetamine, committing violent crimes in aid of racketeering, extortion, and possession of firearms and ammunition as a convicted felon. Napoli also forfeited $223,000 in cash, as well as 20 firearms, a number of vehicles, and three motorcycles, as part of a $6 million personal judgment against him, according to Assistant United States Attorney Andrea Foulkes, who prosecuted the case.

In a business where careers are built one corpse at a time, Barry Bowe says the harshest truth of writing in the genre known as "true crime" is this: Some murders are "commercial stories," but most others are not. A guy kills his wife and then turns the weapon on himself? Sorry. Too common. Not commercial. Drug dealers are gunned down in a shootout? Yawn. Good riddance. Definitely not commercial. Sex, strangulation and dismemberment? Stop! Yes. Very commercial. Throw in, say, seven more bodies, an outlaw, drug-trafficking motorcycle gang and a prison escape by the arch villain, and, mon Dieu, it's a book, maybe even a movie, and maybe even a sequel.

The new TV season doesn't begin for three weeks. But a number of shows are diving in early, intent on getting a few laps in before the big boys cannonball into the pool. Today we look at a pair of new cable series that are jumping the networks. The better bet is Sons of Anarchy on FX (Wednesdays at 10 p.m.), a shockingly good series about a motorcycle gang in the apocryphal California valley town of Charming. This is the most unusual and engaging family drama since The Sopranos, to which Sons of Anarchy bears certain similarities.

A crystal-methamphetamine distribution ring allegedly run by the Breed motorcycle gang has been broken and 15 members from Philadelphia, Bucks and Montgomery Counties and New Jersey were in custody or were being sought, Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett said yesterday. From May 2005 through June 2006, he said, the gang's Pennsylvania chapter distributed more than 120 pounds of crystal meth, with a street value of more than $11.25 million. Corbett said a statewide investigation and a grand jury found that from its clubhouse at 3707 Spruce St. in Bristol, the gang "had terrorized Lower Bucks County for several decades by committing crimes involving illegal drug dealing, thefts, extortion, witness intimidation and assaults.

Armed with crow bars and hacksaws, John Lowney and his crew broke into as many as 100 pharmacies all over South Jersey in order to steal powerful narcotic prescription drugs, authorities said. Lowney, 39, then took the drugs to his native Lynn, Mass., where they were sold by the East Coast chapter of the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang. Lowney, who was arrested in May 2003 while doing a solo drug-store burglary, was sentenced yesterday in federal court in Camden to 12 years in prison.

Robert "Mudman" Simon, the motorcycle gang member sentenced to death for killing a Franklin Township police officer while on parole in 1995, was beaten to death in prison yesterday by fellow death-row inmate Ambrose Harris, who murdered a Bucks County artist in 1992. Harris, 47, allegedly assaulted Simon, 48, shortly before 11 a.m. in an indoor recreation area at the New Jersey State Prison. Harris had just been moved from his cell to allow an exterminator to perform routine maintenance, the New Jersey Department of Corrections said.

A raid of two clubhouses under the Market-Frankford El this morning was part of a federal crackdown today on a motorcycle gang whose "Mother Chapter" is alleged to be based in Philadelphia. About 6 a.m., agents of the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms entered two Wheels of Soul buildings that sit across from each other in the 6100 block of Market Street. A federal indictment unsealed in St Louis this morning alleged that 18 Wheels of Soul associates from seven states - Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Missouri, Colorado, Wisconsin and Kentucky - are suspected of involvement in murder, kidnapping, drug distribution and racketeering.

An unidentified man dressed in the style of a motorcycle gang member was found slain "execution style" last night on a lightly traveled section of highway in Southwest Philadelphia, police said. The victim, a white man estimated to be between 35 and 40 years old, was shot in the back of the neck, said Lt. James Ferguson of the Homicide Unit. "He has the biker look," Ferguson said after examining the body. Detectives on the scene were concerned that the slaying might be linked to yesterday's arrests of several members of the Warlocks motorcycle gang on drug charges.

Federal authorites yesterday seized more than $400,000, a gun, and several pounds of "speed" while rounding up three members of the Warlocks motorcycle gang and other alleged "major" Kensington-area drug traffickers. Most of the money was seized in homes owned by reputed druglord Thomas Fiet, 44, of Crispin Street near Rhawn, whose alleged drug network made and sold more than 200 pounds of speed since 1994. convicted, Fiet may be facing life in prison, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph T. Labrum III. A second network allegedly headed by Thomas "Uncle Tom" Zaroff, a past president of the Warlocks' Philadelphia chapter, employed the late Steven Alexander as a "cook" to change raw chemicals into pounds of methamphetamine at clandestine labs.

It's doubtful that bikers in the Pagan's Motorcycle Club keep membership lists, by-laws and bank statements alphabetized in file cabinets, but officials in New Jersey say they need whatever records the club has to defend themselves against a lawsuit. The New Jersey State Police are the defendants in civil rights suit filed by two Pagan's Motorcycle Club members and a former Tribe MC member. The suit stems from a July 30, 2009, traffic stop involving six motorcycles in Burlington County that lasted more than an hour.

Three members of the Wheels of Soul biker club were shot and wounded, one critically, early Sunday in front of their West Philadelphia clubhouse, police said. Investigators were seeking a lone gunman and a possible motive for the 6 a.m. shooting. The critically wounded 31-year-old man was shot in the head and was fighting for his life at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. In stable condition at the hospital were a 47-year-old man who was shot in the right leg, and a 34-year-old man who was hit in the buttocks, back, shoulder, and left thigh.

A Camden man is among four alleged members of a Philadelphia-based outlaw biker gang charged with robbery, kidnapping, and murder in an indictment announced Friday, the U.S. Attorney's Office in St. Louis said. Curtis "Tomahawk" Cole, 33, of Camden, an alleged member of the Wheels of Soul motorcycle gang, is charged in a January 2011 robbery and killing in Chicago, prosecutors said. The U.S. Attorney's Office announced a superseding grand jury indictment naming the four men. Eighteen others were accused in the original June 2011 indictment.

Philadelphia police were investigating three overnight homicides, including the death of a woman in Feltonville whose body was recovered from a charred vehicle found with two bullet holes in the passenger door. At 2:19 a.m. Sunday, officers from the 25th District found a burning 2002 Chrysler Sebring in the 4500 block of North Third Street. An unidentified woman was pulled from the passenger seat after the fire was extinguished. At 3:46 a.m. Sunday, two men were shot in the 6100 block of Market Street in West Philadelphia, outside the clubhouse of the Wheels of Soul motorcycle gang, police said.

A raid of two clubhouses under the Market-Frankford El this morning was part of a federal crackdown today on a motorcycle gang whose "Mother Chapter" is alleged to be based in Philadelphia. About 6 a.m., agents of the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms entered two Wheels of Soul buildings that sit across from each other in the 6100 block of Market Street. A federal indictment unsealed in St Louis this morning alleged that 18 Wheels of Soul associates from seven states - Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Missouri, Colorado, Wisconsin and Kentucky - are suspected of involvement in murder, kidnapping, drug distribution and racketeering.

LOS ANGELES - The Mongols motorcycle gang will be allowed to keep its name and trademark logo after a federal court judge rejected the government's attempts to seize control of their use. In an eight-page ruling made public yesterday, U.S. District Judge Otis Wright vacated a preliminary order of forfeiture against the gang. Prosecutors had tried to take over the rights to the Mongols name and logo - a ponytailed man riding a chopper - and prevent members from using, distributing or wearing both, arguing that the insignia were very closely associated with the gang and by removing access, the Mongols would be prevented from operating.

He was once the baddest guy in the biker world - a convicted gunman who spent several tumultuous years atop Philadelphia's notorious Pagans Motorcycle Club. But when police came to arrest Steven "Gorilla" Mondevergine on a new set of attempted murder charges, the motorcycle thug was holed up at his mother's house in New Jersey. The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office said that Mondevergine was taken into custody yesterday in Washington Township, N.J., without incident. Mondevergine was arrested and charged with attempted murder and aggravated assault in the January 2008, shooting of former Pagans president Timothy "Casual" Flood at the Pagans headquarters, on Torresdale Avenue near Disston Street, in Northeast Philadelphia, the D.A.'s office said.

The new TV season doesn't begin for three weeks. But a number of shows are diving in early, intent on getting a few laps in before the big boys cannonball into the pool. Today we look at a pair of new cable series that are jumping the networks. The better bet is Sons of Anarchy on FX (Wednesdays at 10 p.m.), a shockingly good series about a motorcycle gang in the apocryphal California valley town of Charming. This is the most unusual and engaging family drama since The Sopranos, to which Sons of Anarchy bears certain similarities.